Interview w/Last Week’s #BlogBattle Winner

J.A. Merkelwas our lucky winner from #BlogBattle numero uno: Four Leaf Clover. QUICK PLUG: Make sure to write your own short story for this week’s #BlogBattle: Side Table. Click here for the rules and the basic info!

Now, back to the scheduled entertainment! J.A. Merkel agreed to a quick interview after his impressive win last week, and now I get to share his answers with you today. 🙂

Let’s get started.

1) As a writer if you had to choose between eating expired sour cream (I mean the really sour sour sour cream) or losing the last three chapters of your book in a freak computer crash, which would you choose? Why?

I would eat the expired sour cream. Luckily, (knock on wood) I have never lost any chapters but I know I would be devastated if I did. There is something about writing that first draft that is irreplaceable. At least with the way that I write, my first and initial thoughts and the first time I write that scene down, will probably never be the same in a subsequent version. I may understand the scene in a better way and sometimes that changes my writing from very raw to almost too careful. Not sure if that makes sense. Yeah, I would get ill for the sake of my last three chapters.

I bet many are nodding in agreement at this moment!

2) When you are preparing to start writing, do you have any special ritual that you perform?

I used to reserve blocks of time for writing time but now as I get more and more busy I hope to just write when I can. Sometimes I’ll have a thought that I need to get down so I just sit down at my computer and start typing. Maybe I’ll only write that one thing down and maybe I’ll write like a maniac for a few hours. Other than that, there is no special ritual. Maybe if I have a full weekend of writing, I’ll get myself set up with lots of water, music downloads, writing podcasts, and some TV shows for the in between writing spurts.

Sounds like you’re pretty flexible!

3) If an alien offered you a million dollars, but the only catch was that you had to give up your ability to write, would you take it? Why?

I would not take the million dollars. I think I have realized and admitted that a lot of my happiness and self-worth comes from the fact that I love to write. If I lost this ability, I don’t think I’d get as much out of it. I think we all want to be good at something, and writing is something I think I can be good at. It’s a life-long goal to keep getting better and to attain some skill in life. All that money would be great but it can’t buy what I really want. It’s only temporary.

Thanks for including me in this. Pretty cool what you are doing, Rachael!!!

It’s my pleasure, J.A.! It’s simply my pleasure. I have so much fun connecting with other people from across the globe. It makes me wish we all lived close together, though, so that I could see everyone face to face, slap some high fives, give some hugs, pound some knuckles, shake some hands, give a few winks…that sort of thing. 🙂

Thanks for taking some time out of your day to spend with us and answer some rather personal questions. That one about sour cream . . . phew.

And I love it. I do love it so much I shall continue for many, many months, if not longer. The hardest part is picking a winner, I’m sure. I may just start putting all the names on a Word document, bringing a blind-folded assistant to the computer screen and then letting their finger fall where may. That seems a nice decisive way to decide a winner. Don’t you agree? 🙂

Blog Battle

Chronicles of the Twelve Realms

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Auntie’s Book Store

Smashwords

Apple iBooks

Kobo

ALLI

Follow me on Twitter

Goodreads

Rachael Ritchey is a dreamer who believes in the resilience of the human spirit. She never wants to forget we are not what has happened to us or what we've done. She believes we are deep wells of compassion and strength, and when unleashed, these subtle super powers can change the world, even if only just one person at a time.
Rachael writes with an eye toward exemplifying these attributes. Her clean but real and true-to-self YA fiction reflects these qualities with daring adventure and sweet romance that almost anyone can enjoy. Rachael lives in Spokane, WA with her husband, kids, and their dog named Hashtag.